


Musical Interlude

by bar2d2s



Category: The Flash (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 05:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3923836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[imported from my Tumblr circa 2013]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Musical Interlude

Axel has no idea who half of these people even are.

I’m projecting my own musical tastes on Owen WHOOPS.

Also, this went on FOR FUCKING EVER it was not supposed to be this long, my brain just kept going.

 

Axel has no idea who half of these people are.

Okay, the Beatles. He recognizes those guys just because  _hello_. His mom listened to Beatle Brunch on the radio every Sunday. He knew these songs. Rolling Stones, check. His dad’s favorite band. The Doors. Knew them too. Jim Morrison’s voice was just too unique to confuse with anyone else. But…the Kinks? The Who? Or was it the Guess Who? Rascals?  _Young_  Rascals? What?

“This all sucks and you should put on Nicki.”

Owen ignored him, throwing an empty beer can at his head. Owen got testy around his records. A lot of them, he’d told him, were some of the only good things he had growing up. He’d salvaged them from the dumpster of a Peaches Music that had closed, smuggled them home in his school bag. It had taken him nearly a year to scrape together the money to buy something to play them on. But the dumpster records weren’t the pride of his collection. His dad, the first Captain Boomerang, had left him records, too. Owen kept the obscure, weird, way too Australian to be of any use ones on lockdown, but the better ones he played all the time.

“Let yourself be educated. Here, Clapton.” The song started with an awesome riff, and Axel’s ears perked up. He knew this one.

“I know this one.” The version he knew was slower, acoustic. Lots more snapping in the background. “Layla.” Owen looked at him in surprise.

“Holy shit, and here I thought you were hopeless after not knowing that Alien Ant Farm weren’t the original people who did Smooth Criminal.”

A guy makes one mistake…but he remembered this song. It was on the radio a lot when he was a kid. The station he listened to in the car on the way to school played it the most. He remembered swaying in the back seat of his mom’s car, closing his eyes, and running his fingers through his own hair. His mom had told him that the person who wrote the song was a guy who was in love with George Harrison’s wife, and that she’d ended up divorcing him and marrying the writer instead. The internet told him that they’d gotten divorced, too.

Everyone got divorced, eventually.

It was still a good song.

Axel hugged himself, frowning. He picked up the can Owen had thrown, tossing it back and hitting him square in the middle of his left buttcheek. 

“Put on something else.”

He wasn’t going to suggest anything. Let him put on Jim, with his voice like a velvet painting, or Mick, harsh and almost mean-sounding. He saw a red door and god fucking damnit, you’d better start painting that shit black. Mick Jagger will fuck you up. Maybe. Fifty years ago, at least. Now he was more liable to fall down and break a hip. At least the tunes were still choice.

Owen put on a Supremes record.

“Of course you’d choose the chick music, you big woman.” Owen rolled his eyes, jumping on his bed to spread out next to Axel. Aside from Owen’s records, the bed was littered with Axel’s comic books, the remains of their trip to Big Belly Burger, and a random pair of Owen’s socks. Owen had the second biggest bed at the hideout, mainly because he was the one who’d risked life and limb to get it. Len had the very biggest bed, because he was the one who had an actual room, not a cleverly disguised custodian closet, or a roped-off area of warehouse.

When he was fourteen, before he realized that being a Rogue is what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, Axel had entertained thoughts about being a rock star. But rock stars nowadays were lame. They burnt out too quickly, without ever really doing anything worth remembering.

Axel wanted to have a string of chart-topping hits, knock up a couple of groupies, then have someone gun him down so he could join the 27-club. That’s what he’d wanted to do. But then he’d seen Captain Cold and the Flash go at it in the middle of downtown, and his ambitions changed.

Owen flicked him in the forehead. Axel blinked.

“What?”

He jerked his head at the record player.

“It’s been like fifteen minutes without you bitching. Go play with it. Put on something you like.”

A few moments of digging, and Axel unearthed a Creedence Clearwater Revival record. He had no idea what the fuck would be on it, but the name was ridiculous.

_It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one, no._

Axel flopped back down on the mattress, climbing onto Owen’s back and laying down on him His feet barely hung down past Owen’s knees. Pitiful.

“Hey.” Owen gyrated his rear, and Axel slid off. “How’d you know Layla?”

“Heard it a lot as a kid. The other version.” He made a noise of understanding, rolling onto his side and gathering Axel against his chest.

It was the dumbest thing, listening to records and, fuck,  _cuddling_  on the only other full mattress in the base, but they did it every Sunday. It was a day no one bugged them, because they were all busy with their own shit. Axel knocked his forehead against Owen’s clavicle. 

“Wanna make out?”

It was such a teenager thing to do, to ask. But he was eighteen. What was Owen even expecting.

Owen laughed, surprising the youngest Rogue with a kiss to the forehead, and nothing more.

“Nah. Let’s just do this until someone bursts in to shut off the player.”

So they did. For over an hour, they lay on the bed together, Axel’s head on Owen’s chest, occasionally getting up to change the record. Neither talked, they just absorbed the music. But the peace couldn’t last, and around sunset, Len stuck his head in through the door. 

“We’re doing a smash and grab on a few of the jewelers in town. Suit up and, eh?” He tilted his head, catching wind of the record that was still playing. “That the Lovin’ Spoonful? Haven’t heard them in…anyway. Grab your gear, we leave in ten.”

Axel stretched as he stood, trying to locate his shoes in the clothing explosion that was the area next to Owen’s mattress. Owen was already up and moving, strapping on his boomerang belts and securing his scarf before Axel had his socks back on.

“Your music isn’t totally awful.” Axel admitted before they left the room, just as he did every week. Like always, Owen grinned. He’d get him fully trained one of these days.


End file.
